Description of semantics of robot programming languages

Abstract The paper presents a formal method of defining semantics of robot programming language (RPL) instructions. These languages are divided into three levels: joint, manipulator and object level. As a criterion of this division, the abstract notion, that the instructions of the language refer to, is used. Moreover, depending on the precision of semantics definition of a particular language, these languages are classified into three types (point-to-point, bonded-path and continuous-path). The described method is capable of defining semantics of instructions independently of the type or the level of the considered language. To achieve this a concept of virtual environment is introduced. The description of the state of the system, consisting of the virtual environment, data base, variables and program control flow subsystem, is considered on each level. The object level languages are dealt with in particular detail. The attributes of the objects as well as the relations occurring between them are taken into account. Furthermore the method does not depend on the type of the industrial robot used.